[GRASSLIST:10801] Re: [GRASS5] FWD: [OSGeo-Discuss] Incubation Committee / Contributor Agreements]

[Huidae Cho]

On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 10:18:04AM +0000, Glynn Clements wrote:
> 
> Paolo Cavallini wrote:
> 
> > A professional user view: for us, it is VERY important to have guarantees that 
> > the GRASS code will remain free. The risk of hijacking is a serious threat to 
> > our business.
> 
> Regardless of whatever happens with OSGeo, you will always be able to
> use existing versions under the GPL. The proposed OSGeo CLA creates
> the possibility that future enhancements might not be under the GPL. 
> But regardless of OSGeo, there's no actual guarantee that future
> enhancements will occur, or that they will take GRASS in a direction
> which is suitable for your purposes.
> 
> As I see it, the main risk of allowing proprietary derivatives is a
> risk of "siphoning off" developers and beta testers (aka "users") from
> the free version towards a "mostly, but not quite" free version.
> 
> IMHO, the biggest risk is with versions which are "free-enough for
> most people", e.g. "free for non-commercial use". OpenDWG is probably
> a good example; it isn't "Free Software", but it's close enough to
> significantly reduce the chances of a genuinely-free alternative being
> developed.
> 

I totally agree with you on this matter.  Most of end users will turn to a
"better, yet free enough" software and, IMHO, there is great possibility that a
non free software will do things better for them especially if it's a
derivative work.  It would be disastrous to, in any way, limit the developers'
right to choose appropriate copyright for their own code.

Huidae Cho

> -- 
> Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>
> 
> _______________________________________________
> grass5 mailing list
> grass5 at grass.itc.it
> http://grass.itc.it/mailman/listinfo/grass5